This invention relates to a medicating bandage in which the application of a medication is controlled by a controllable permeable membrane in response to a sensed biological condition of a patient being medicated.
It has been proposed heretofore to supply medication to a patient through the use of a medicating bandage, in which a supply of a medication is contained within a pad forming a part of a bandage and is released to the surface of the pad and to the skin of a patient to whom or to which the bandage is applied. This technology has been implemented, for example, in connection with medications intended for pain and nausea relief as well as for some more controlled medications used in treatment of other conditions.
Bandage dosage technology, as developed up until the time of this invention, has relied upon delivery of the medication under the control essentially of only physical parameters set at the time of manufacture of the medicating bandage. By determining the physical characteristics of the bandage, a designer may select dosage levels and durations. While this limited level of dosage control has enabled commercially acceptable products, it is recognized that such medicating bandages have been incapable of adapting dosage processes to what may be changing patient conditions.
It has also been proposed heretofore to render a bandage "intelligent" to the limited extent of providing, in the bandage itself, a sensor which is capable of registering certain events and signaling occurrences of those events.